At the age of 29, Holly Deane-Johns was found guilty of attempting to post 15 grams of heroin to Australia from Bangkok, as well as possessing another 15 grams in her apartment.

She narrowly avoided the death penalty but received a 31-year prison sentence; after serving seven years, she returned to Australia and started putting the pieces of her life back together.

Ms Deane-Johns told Gary Adshead on 6PR Mornings she managed to eventually make it through almost a decade of nightmarish conditions through a combination of luck and resilience.

“I continued to use heroin for the first ten months I was in there; I just wanted to be as numb as possible,” she said.

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